SEO Copywriting Tips: How to Write Headlines That Get Clicked Every Time

It doesn’t matter if you’re writing SEO content for a pay per click ad, or for an article to get more from your organic search engine optimization marketing, it’s the headlines that web surfers see first. And, if it’s not up to par, nine times out of ten it won’t get clicked.

For are three SEO copywriting tips for writing effective headlines. Your website/ad/blog will do better in organic search results – and in pay per click rankings (if that’s what you’re spending money on).

3 SEO Copywriting Headline Writing Tips

Internet marketing experts say that five times as many web surfers will read your headline, as opposed to any body copy (eg, a web page, a pay per click ad). What this in essence means is that if the headlines don’t lure them in, the no matter how fantastic your product or service is, you’ll never get a chance to tell them about it because they won’t click through.

So the first tip here is to . . .

I. Be Specific in Your SEO Copywriting: The web is a very crowded place . . . and is getting more so by the day. According to Jason Kates, CEO of Argo Digital Solutions, “Worldwide, 80,000 new websites go live each day . . .” A statistic you’ll find all over the web puts it higher; some internet marketing experts very conservatively estimate that over 100,000 new websites go live every day.

Either way you look at it, that’s a lot of new competition being added to the web every day. This means you have nanoseconds to attract a prospect’s attention.

So, how do you get attention? By being very specific in your SEO writing, specifically in your headlines. The reason is, when web surfers go online, they’re searching for I-N-F-O-R-M-A-T-I-O-N. And those who are “ready to buy” are searching for very specific information.

Hence, the more specific you can be in your headline, the better chance you have of your ad/article being clicked. .

For example, if you owned a lingerie site that only carried women’s thongs,  a good headline might be simply, Women’s Thong Underwear, instead of the more generic, Womens Lingerie.

II. Use Keywords in Your Headlines: Remember to keep SEO in mind when you write your headlines because not only are you writing for prospective customers, you’re writing for search engines as well.

In SEO writing, keywords tell search engines what the body copy is all about (or at least, it should). So use your strongest keywords in your headlines. This is an SEO copywriting basic by the way.

SEO content that have keywords in the headlines tend to show up higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). The more specific the headline (tip #1) and the more relevant the keyword, the better chance you have of a web surfer clicking on an ad. This is simple mathematics.  

Furthermore, using keywords in your headline does two things: (i) it qualifies prospects, while at the same time; (ii) motivating them to click.

Considering this, it’s easy to see why this SEO copywriting tip is so effective when writing headlines.  

II. Evoke Emotion When Writing Headlines: This is where having an SEO copywriting expert on your team is important, for it’s part of the “craft” of effective SEO writing.

There are so many ways a skilled writer can evoke emotion that it’s impossible to explain here. But, what I will do is tell you why it’s important to evoke emotions in headlines.

By doing this, you will be much better equipped to actually do it when you sit down to write your SEO content.  

SEO Copywriting: Why Evoking Emotion is Important

Take yourself, how do you decide what to click on when you’re surfing? Whether it’s a newspaper story or a blog post, it’s the headline that usually draws you in. Taking this a step further, it’s what the headline “promises” that gets you to click.

Whether you want to cure a toothache, make more money online, find cheap running shoes or cure diaper rash, you have a want and the headline promises the solution (if it’s written right). So ask yourself when you write, what need am I tapping into with this ad/article/blog post, etc. Then use the emotion closely associated with that to write an effective headline.

FYI, curiosity is one of the strongest human emotions. If you can write headline that piques this – and has a good keyword and is specific – you’ve probably got a winning headline. And, it employs all of the SEO copywriting tips we’ve outlined here.

Learn more SEO copywriting tips that sell.